PATRIOTS NOTEBOOK: Nothing special about this effort

Glen Farley The Enterprise @GFarley_ent

Thursday

Oct 18, 2018 at 6:42 PM

In the wake of Tremon Smith's 97-yard kickoff return for Kansas City on Sunday, the Patriots' kickoff coverage unit ranks 30th in the league. Special teams captain Matthew Slater believes a hands-on approach would help the Pats rectify the problem.

FOXBORO – The significance of the play, even in the aftermath of a huge win, was not lost on Patriots special teams captain Matthew Slater.

A 39-yard field goal by Stephen Gostkowski had just given the Patriots a 30-26 lead over Kansas City with 10:22 to play in the fourth quarter of Sunday night’s shootout at Gillette Stadium when Tremon Smith broke 97 yards on the ensuing kickoff before Devin McCourty took him down from behind 3 yards shy of the goal line.

“It’s a big play,” Slater said, reflecting on the kickoff return on Thursday. “At that time in the game you can’t give up a big play like that. That kills your football team. It puts your defense in a terrible position.

“Essentially, we gave up a touchdown. Let’s just call it what it is. In that situation in the game you can’t do it, you can’t have it, but for that to be kind of an indictment of who we are overall, I think we’re going to be playing really hard to dispel that narrative.”

The Patriots overcame that special teams breakdown to win, 43-40, but the damage was done.

“Hey, you play football long enough, bad things are going to happen,” said Slater. “I can think back over my career a number of times when things didn’t go right for me personally or right for us as a team, so we’re facing a little bit of professional adversity and we’re going to have to dig ourselves out of it.”

The Patriots head in to Sunday afternoon’s game with the Chicago Bears ranked 30th in the NFL in kickoff coverage, allowing an average of 27.4 yards per return, an unfamiliar situation for a team that stresses special teams. Remove Smith’s 97-yarder from the equation and that number is still at 22.7 yards, nearly 4 yards above last year’s 18.9 when many of the same core special teams players were here as well.

Whether the Bears can take advantage of the Patriots’ coverage problems – at 19.0 yards per return, they’re tied for 27th in the league in kickoff returns – remains to be seen, but improvements must be made on the Patriots’ side.

During the offseason, changes were made in the kickoff coverage rules, including one that the 10 non-kicking players must now line up within a yard of the spot of the kickoff, eliminating the running start from 5 yards back they could previously take.

“I think it’s definitely slowed that down a little bit, maybe a step or so, 40 yards later or 30 yards later,” Patriots head coach Bill Belichick said earlier this week. “Everybody’s playing with the same set of rules, (though) so we just need to do a better job of whatever the situation is.”

According to Slater, a hands-on approach would help rectify the problem.

“I think for us a lot of it comes down to playing with good fundamentals and being able to use our hands a little bit better to get off blocks, playing together, covering as a unit and making sure we see the play the same way,” said Slater. “So we’ve spent a lot of time on that this week. I still have a lot of faith in confidence in our group and how we can play. We’ve just got to start doing it.”

No Cannon in their arsenal?: Offensive right tackle Marcus Cannon missed his second straight day of practice in concussion protocol, increasing the possibility that backup LaAdrian Waddle will get the starting nod in Chicago.